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Insight into the physicochemical properties and thermal behavior of cellulose microcrystals isolated from Aleppo pine using different delignification approaches

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Abstract

Cellulose at different scales from lignocellulosic biomass is an important biopolymer for advanced industrial applications. Nevertheless, pretreatments and delignification processes affect most of the physicochemical properties of the final cellulosic products, such as purity, thermal stability, and mechanical behavior. Hence, it is crucial to find suitable extraction procedures. This study intends to point out the importance of the choice of extraction techniques, and it focuses on the isolation of α-cellulose from Aleppo pine, for which two-delignification processes, namely, kraft or organosolv, were employed, followed by either acidified sodium chlorite or alkaline peroxide treatments. Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was subsequently prepared through acid hydrolysis. A comparative study was undertaken to assess the efficiency of each treatment by analyzing the chemical composition, molecular weight distribution, structure, crystallinity, morphology, and thermal stability of the different products. The obtained pure MCC exhibited interesting features such as rod-like shape, high crystallinity (74–85%), and high thermal stability (>342 °C) than the commercial MCC or those derived from other natural sources, for which minor differences are observed for the different MCCs obtained from a procedure to another. Interestingly, the chlorine-free delignification process, i.e., organosolv followed by alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatment, allowed obtaining MCC with outstanding characteristics. The findings of this study demonstrated that the delignification process potentially affected the quality of the extraction of MCC from Aleppo pine, which may find promising applications, especially as polymer reinforcements, dietary food, and pharmaceutics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Supérieure du Matériel ESM, BP 188, Beau-Lieu, Algiers, Algeria

    Wissam Bessa

  2. Energetic Materials Laboratory (EMLab), Ecole Militaire Polytechnique, BP 17, Bordj El-Bahri, 16046, Algiers, Algeria

    Wissam Bessa, Djalal Trache, Ahmed Fouzi Tarchoun & Amir Abdelaziz

  3. Materials Technology Research Group (MaTReC), School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Minden, Penang, Malaysia

    M. Hazwan Hussin

  4. Laboratoire d’Etude et de Recherche sur le MAtériau Bois (LERMAB), Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université de Lorraine, Bld. des Aiguillettes, F-54500, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Nicolas Brosse

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  1. Wissam Bessa
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Contributions

W.B.: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data treatment, writing—original draft. D.T.: conceptualization, methodology, resources, investigation, writing—original draft. A.F.T. and A.A.: conceptualization, review and editing. M.H. and N.B.: review and editing the manuscript draft. All authors have approved the initial version of the article.

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Bessa, W., Trache, D., Tarchoun, A.F. et al. Insight into the physicochemical properties and thermal behavior of cellulose microcrystals isolated from Aleppo pine using different delignification approaches. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04678-9

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